James Earl Ray (above) an escaped American convict, was arrested 
in London, England, and charged with the assassination of African
American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Rev. King was fatally wounded by a
sniper’s bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-
story room at the Motel Lorraine.

That evening, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was found on the
sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the Lorraine
Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports,
and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect:
James Earl Ray.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968)

James Earl Ray (1928 – 1998)

Ray died on April 23, 1998, just 19 days after the 30th
Anniversary of King’s Assassination, at the age of 70,
at the Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Madison,
Tennessee from complications related to kidney disease
and liver failure caused by hepatitis C.